July 28, 2006 by Amy

Home Sweet Electrically Powered Home

We have power!!!! After 8 days, and staying at two other houses (thank you Grandma Frank and Mom & Dad Z), we have a house in which everything turns on and runs as it’s supposed to. There is no sweeter sound than that of the air conditioner kicking on.

Thank you to Ameren Rich, who got us restored in 10 minutes yesterday afternoon. Thank you Mom Z for letting Ameren Rich drive his Ameren truck on your grass so he could use it to get us fixed in 10 minutes. Thank you to Ameren Angela for assessing the situation and telling Ameren Rich to fix us.

The sky is a beautiful blue, it’s Friday, and I’m gettin’ my fingers and toes done after work today. Not a bad day!

Of course, now that I’ve said that something will happen to muck it all up.

Get this, the reason we were having electricity problems had nothing to do with the storm, according to Ameren Rich. He said squirrels had chewed through our neutral, and it was just coincidence that it happened when the storm hit. M’s theory is that they chewed it almost through and then the storm came through and busted it all the way. I think M’s probaby right, because as crazy as our squirrels are, I can’t picture one hanging out on the wire, chewing away in the middle of a storm. Damn squirrels. We have a million of them in our yard. The flashing on the roof of our house had to be replaced before we moved it b/c they had chewed it all up. Our friend Mary had to re-do her patio furniture b/c they had chewed scalloped edges into every piece. Our back door neighbors, Pete and Susan, have chew marks in their relatively new fence from the squirrels. I’ve sat in my house and watched them chew on the corner of the other neighbors’ gutter.

You know how Bill Murray’s character, Carl Spackler, in Caddy Shack was obsessed with taking out the gopher? I can see me ending up like that trying to get rid of squirrels.

Last night we went to Taylor’s to celebrate Papa’s 34 years of being a kick-ass crane operator. Food, beer, cranes…doesn’t get much better than that. Papa has some really funny stories, and we had a blast just hanging out with him and some of his colleagues. So, congratulations to Papa on his anniversary! We love you and are very proud of you!